Posted on 01/01/2016 1:48:17 PM PST by Thistooshallpass9
Anyone think that maybe it appears to be wider spread and epidemic simply because so many more people are living longer than they used to? Must it be a question of morals?
Article is sophomoric on many levels along with lacking insight on the way things really work. For example, comparing Alzheimer’s Disease as a cause of death between third world and first world countries — Alz can only be definitively diagnosed in most cases after death with an autopsy. How many 90 year olds do you think get autopsies in India? In third world countries they think of dementia as just getting old with no fancy diagnosis.
Men are more frequently the victim of Alzheimer’s than women. Maybe they just get tired of all the nagging and retreat into it.
(donning flameproofs...INCOMING!)
The chief cause may well be not dying of something else first. The human body, and particularly the brain, evolved very quickly, and was not really designed to live 80 or 90 years.
The simple cause is that people outlive their brain. In the past and in other cultures, people (on the average) died earlier. If they began to get dementia, they could succomb to something else easier before the effects of dementia became so profound.
Today, we do everything humanly possible to extend physical life. By the time people are 60, they taking a medicine cabinet full of drugs every day for every possible ailment that might shorten their life. If someone dies from a heart attack at age 80, we will chalk it up to “heart disease” instead of “old age” or “natural causes”. We don’t accept “natural causes” anymore. You had to die from something and with the right drugs, it could have been “prevented”...for a little while at least!
So, in the end, the brain expires while the fake knees, Lipitor, BP meds, boner pills, diabetes drugs, NSAIDs, BPH meds, and Prednisone keep the body running. Like a zombie.
Here is something that is probably closer to the truth than the article’s youchy-feely theory: Those evil white males have extended women’s life span by many, many years (women used to die younger than men). I suspect that women’s Altzheimer’s rates reflect the fact that they are living beyond their service life.
Yale has done a fine job of showing how their standards have gone as of late. This study appears to have all the scientific validity of alchemic transmutation. Good show, Yale. Being those haughty STEM types down to the subterranian level of your lib arts departments.
No. We’re living longer, but that doesn’t generate clicks.
This is one more variation of the mind over matter fallacy that is constantly being debunked by real scientific study. The read was a waste of time.
The article addresses this question with the example of Greece. The average Greek lives two years longer than the average American, yet they have about one 18th as many Alzheimer’s deaths.
Did you read the Greece section of the article? That’s not a 3rd world nation.
Yeah, synapses and axons and dendrites just don’t work as well as they used to, and blood flow is diminished. Got to tell you though, we have had some remarkable results with curcumin, which happens to be an old Indian treatment for dementia. I found this out from an Indian neurologist. Turmeric in standardized capsules happens to have a rebate as Costco right now.
One symptom is that when you read, you see strange symbols.
A lot of it can probably be traced to inactivity. Previously, old people lived with their children until their death and participated in family responsibilities as they were able.
However, in our age where the generations no longer share the same roof, when responsibilities become too much, the elderly largely just stop doing them instead of doing what they can and their children taking over when it proves to be too much. That inactivity is what contributes to mental decline.
Give the haters 10 years and then we'll see who's laughing.
Greece is a bankrupt nation and certainly doesn’t have much money for elective autopsies. And it sure seemed third-world while I was there. But Mediterranean diets do have advantages.
I’ve also seen it referred to as Type 3 diabetes. Cause - a lifetime of high carbohydrate food intake. IIRC it has to do with advanced glycation end products (AGE)/protein tangles in the brain.
It's as stupid as saying a certain type of parenting causes schizophrenia. Or autism.
My parents were wealthy, young minded, busy, and active. Heck, they built a central CA mountain home in their early 70s in between traveling to their other homes or just trips with friends. They had very active social lives, some deep, close friends and plenty of acquaintances who thought the world of them. They spent time and money giving back to those less fortunate or ill.
In their very late 70s, my dad clearly was showing early signs of Alzheimer's. He had to give up all his investment overseeing and professional work; like everyone else with Alz he started to cognitively decline and lose the power of speech. A few years in, mom started to show signs as well. She has kept her communication skills but also continued on the direct line of degeneration. They are in their mid 80s and dad is near the end, mom is in the late middle of the path.
They ate meat, they loved fruits and veggies, they didn't drink much (mom not at all), didn't smoke. They walked. They had a lot to live for, kids and grandkids. They didn't feel old. They had no health problems at all. There is no cancer or heart disease in our family. And yet it happened to them.
Alzheimers is an epidemic. It's not just that we are living longer. 4 of my grandparents lived into their 90s. My parents probably won't.
I believe Alzheimers is caused by something or things in our environment. Neurotoxic chemicals? Bacteria? We are doing something wrong, and I don't have the answer.
But this article is BULL. My parents were SMART and they exercised their brains doing really tough things. My dad did bookkeeping for medical practices after he retired his own. He could do the most amazing math calculations in his head. My mom traveled the world giving speeches at the height of her career.
It's not a social thing or a perception thing. Alzheimers is your brain being destroyed, nothing else.
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